Making a decision wasn't too difficult; the options before Tashan weren't numerous.
The Mole Squad's work continued. Numerous branches had appeared in the passageways, transforming this underground network into a veritable maze. Blue ore accumulated slowly yet steadily. Tasha had no plans to create more mole squads. She felt like a coal baron who'd made his fortune mining, constantly haunted by the looming fear that resources would soon run dry.
Besides the Earth Rune, three other runes remained untouched:
Water, Air, and Fire. Tasha touched them cautiously, sensing the energy requirements increase progressively from one to the next. Activating the Water Flow rune required several times the energy needed to create a mole, while Air Flow demanded several times that amount. At her current rate of energy accumulation, discovering what the Flame rune could hatch would take an eternity.
Tasha attempted to activate the Water Flow rune.
The process of creating a mole repeated itself, only this time the light that flared was aqua blue. Before the glow faded, fragments of information flashed through Tasha's mind.
What was approaching was—
The Devourer of All Things, capable of corroding any physical existence, digesting all living creatures as nourishment; the Immortal Shaper, possessing no fixed form yet able to transform at will, destined to survive until the world's end as long as sustenance remained. It fears neither blade nor sword, surviving the fiercest weapons; it fears no environment, thriving alone.
Sounds far more formidable than a mole. Those unassuming creatures were excellent miners—the ore they unearthed had saved Tasha's life. She couldn't help but feel hopeful again, wondering what surprises spending more Water Runes might bring.
On the floor where the blue light had faded, a watery-colored mass lay sprawled.
Tasha wasn't a fantasy enthusiast. She hadn't played many games and knew little about legendary monsters. Even so, she recognized the creature before her. It bore a name so famous that nearly every young person in the Information Age could identify it at first glance. There was no other reason—it was simply too iconic.
Unfortunately, "iconic" did not equate to powerful.
Friend, have you heard of slimes?
Tasha stared at the water-blue gel mass before her, momentarily speechless. The creature had a rounded shape, like a pool of semi-solid water. Through its uniformly translucent body, the ground behind it was visible. It had moved a short distance across the floor, leaving a trail of dampness behind. The rough sand and stones offered no resistance to its soft, squishy form.
Devourer of all things? Well, it was perfectly normal for this slime mold to decompose organic matter. As for inorganic substances like stone... If acidic water dissolving caves over centuries counted as corrosion, then slime eroding the ground over centuries could certainly be called "devouring all things." Immortal shapeshifter? Indeed. Its squishy body looked like it could be rolled into a ball or flattened—no obvious weak points, suggesting physical attacks might be ineffective.
Lowly creatures like fungi, bacteria, and single-celled organisms possess astonishing vitality when examined closely. They survive harsh environments and reproduce through self-division. Yet no matter how remarkable their abilities, they remain fundamentally lowly lifeforms.
No matter how much hype surrounds slimes, it doesn't change their status as the most basic beginner monsters in most fantasy tales.
Tasha stared at this eyeless creature for ages, yet felt no core within it, let alone any command center. Minutes later, she realized it wasn't her lack of skill—such lowly organisms simply possess no core.
How exactly does one communicate with an amoeba?
The water-colored slime crawled away slowly, utterly oblivious to its creator's frustration. It settled into a corner of the hall and curled up, remaining perfectly still for the next several minutes. One might have mistaken it for a peculiar mushroom.
Tasha prodded it with an invisible hand, hoping to trigger some latent potential within the slime (wherever that might be), but it showed no reaction. She racked her brain, filled with scattered fragments of information, yet found no intelligence on how to command such a creature. No matter how fiercely she mentally commanded it to move, there was no effect. Even at the sluggish pace of a snail, Tasha couldn't imagine what it could possibly do.
So she summoned another.
The second slime appeared on the floor, indistinguishable from the first. It had no nose or eyes, just a smooth gelatinous mass lying still. Soon it slithered toward a corner and curled up beside the first slime. After completing this action, it too entered a state of meditation. The two blobs of gel merged into one large mass, appearing as a single entity. Aside from adding a bit of moisture to the dry hall (look at those two shiny trails), it served no other purpose.
Wait, could it be because there was no food?
A flash of insight struck Tasha. Drawing a parallel between the motionless slime and her own dwindling energy, she felt she was getting somewhere. Stripping away the exaggerated descriptions, her mental notes on slimes did mention "digesting living creatures as nutrients." That meant, unlike the earth element mole, it required organic matter as sustenance, right?
This realization brought Tashan joy, but then worry crept in. Even now, with her perception expanded across countless tunnels, she still detected not a single insect, not even a leaf. Beneath the surface lay only sand and stone—nothing to feed the slime. Thinking this way, they really weren't wrong. Staying still at least reduced their energy consumption.
Tasha commanded one mole to find edible sustenance for the slime. The mole halted, sniffing in confusion, seemingly baffled by the directive.
"Search for insects? Dig up plants?" Tasha refined the order.
The mole sat back on its hind legs, scrubbing sand from its paws.
Tasha commanded again, "Come to the main hall."
This time the mole returned accurately to the hall, suggesting the command hadn't failed. Could it be that they lacked the ability to detect living creatures? Tasha pondered this, finding the possibility quite plausible. Along their digging path, the moles had unearthed scattered stones besides blue ore, yet like Tasha, they only reacted to the blue ore. It seemed her initial luck had been remarkable—she'd accidentally summoned mole rats specialized for mining.
Another possibility was that this place contained no living creatures at all—a thought Tasha refused to entertain. No matter how drastically her form had changed, she couldn't endure centuries of solitude. If rebirth meant being trapped in an empty underground realm, what meaning would her resurrection hold?
Tasha shook off her worries. Now was no time for needless fretting. This was a brand-new world, and none of her current experiences could be explained by past scientific knowledge. Whatever the environment held, she could only abandon old assumptions and explore anew like a newborn child.
At her command, a mole retrieved a piece of blue ore and tossed it onto the slime's head. The ore bounced once on the springy ground before rolling to the floor. The two slimes showed no reaction, but the mole, eager and restless, nearly lunged at it. Tasha sighed, not even bothering to stop the porter from stealing a bite. The mole swallowed the blue ore whole, leaving the limp slimes behind and returning to work with renewed vigor.
Come to think of it, this seemed to be the very first mole she'd beaten into vomiting earlier. The creature appeared to have a particularly voracious appetite.
Tasha was powerless against the slimes, so she set the matter aside for now, taking solace in the fact that the slimes didn't seem to starve to death from not eating. She allocated part of her mental energy to counting (since arriving here, multitasking had become much easier). Hours later, Tasha had replenished the energy she'd used before creating the slime. Instead of summoning more, she continued accumulating power, preparing to activate the airflow rune in one decisive push. This took longer than anticipated, and the mine shaft kept extending further into the distance.
By the next day, Tasha noticed something amiss with the slime.
The slime's body was aqua blue—a pale, translucent shade that wouldn't stain the ground a deep blue. Beneath them, the earth and rocks glowed with a hazy blue light, as if illuminated by blue rays, though no light existed underground.
Tasha felt this blue was familiar. She scanned her surroundings and immediately recognized the source of that familiarity: wasn't this the same color as the bottom of the stone pool?
The pool's hue might be slightly deeper, formed by layers of melted blue ore accumulating over time. The ground beneath the slime was lighter, closely matching the excavated blue ore. It seemed as though...
Tasha focused her attention on that spot. Being the structure itself had its advantages; she instantly detected a faint energy fluctuation in the corner of the hall. Weaker than the blue ore, yet undeniably from the same source. The hall had never held such a fluctuation before, nor had the slime itself. An idea struck Tasha, and she directed the mole-like creatures to move the rubble near the slime.
On the third day, the relocated gravel turned blue. By the fourth day, it looked indistinguishable from fragments of blue ore. The mole-like creatures, still carrying their command to seek food, began approaching the previously ignored pile of rubble. They picked out the blue fragments and tossed them into the stone pool. These blue shards dissolved into the pool's bottom, just like the natural blue ore deposits.
The hypothesis was successfully validated. Tasha finally understood the slimes' purpose. While incapable of receiving commands, they functioned like environmental crops or catalysts: transforming ordinary sand and stone into this blue ore.
No more worries about resource depletion! Overjoyed, Tashan immediately summoned several slimes. The soft-bodied creatures huddled together in a corner of the hall. Tashan gazed at them intently, envisioning the coming season of ore harvests, feeling as though he had evolved from the era of gathering to the era of cultivation.
The new landowner thought contentedly: Food, after all, can be cultivated.